Heart Health: Procedure offering option other than open heart surgery for patien…

Please enable Javascript to watch this video

February is Heart Health Awareness Month and a chance for all of us to take action in lowering our risk for heart disease. According to the American Heart Association, 80% of heart disease may be preventable by lowering your risk factors, including blood pressure, cholesterol and not smoking among other healthy changes in diet and exercise.

There is more good news. Medicine and technology is constantly advancing, helping doctors treat patients with heart disease and other conditions. For example, a procedure called TAVR, which stands for Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement is helping patients with Aortic Valve Stenosis. The condition is the most common valve disease of the heart, and the TAVR procedure has been recently approved for use on more patients (including moderate risk), meaning fewer people will have to undergo open heart surgery.

Kaiser Permanente is just one of the local groups offering the TAVR procedure to certain patients. To learn more, click here.